


Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

by torch



Category: Jade Empire
Genre: First Time, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Spirit Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 16:16:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17287331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torch/pseuds/torch
Summary: One's a larger-than-life hero and savior, one's a con man with a heart of approximately 12 karat gold, and together, theyfight crimecommit crimehave sex!





	Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

Sky looked at the bed. He tipped his head to one side, then the other. The bed stayed the same.

Which was to say, a bit odd-looking. Maybe the people who had taken it apart hadn't sent the top part along, or maybe the people who had put it together hadn't bothered to put the top part on -- either way, it meant now the bed looked like a dog with all four legs in the air. Dead, to be blunt, and that was definitely a bad omen. Not that Sky was a man who put a lot of faith in omens -- he was more the kind of man who'd manufacture an omen or three to get things to go his way -- but. Still. He didn't want to think about dead anything, in bed.

Maybe he could try to see the bedposts pointing straight up like that as a good omen, instead. A very phallic kind of good omen. That made one corner of his mouth quirk up.

He reached down and pushed at the bed a bit just to find out how heavy it was. If he could shove it over to the wall, that would cut down on the number of sides he could fall off. Or anyone could fall off, to be fair, but he would prefer to be on the side closer to the door, in case... well, just in case. So if anyone fell off, it would be him.

Sky tugged a bit at the bedding instead, trying to spread it out a bit, pulling one bolster this way and one the other way to make a bigger surface despite the actual measurements of the bedframe. At least the bed was properly made up, full of actual pillows and blankets -- clean ones, at that. Someone had made an effort.

Up until now, he'd spread his bedroll on the floor next to Tiger Shen's, a supposedly temporary solution that had started over the passing days to seem very permanent. They slept next to each other, but they might as well have been on opposite sides of the room, exchanging a chaste goodnight kiss and maybe a few words about the day before sleeping wrapped up in their separate blankets.

That would have to change. Sky knew that. He wanted that. He was the one who'd insisted on the bed, and now the bed was here, and there was a purpose to that. A bedroll on the floor wasn't right, wasn't anywhere near suitable, but here the bed was, ready and waiting.

Ready and waiting and looking all wrong. The bolsters drooped over the edges, an invitation for someone to slip to the floor. Sky sighed. That would definitely be him. He looked up just as Tiger Shen came into the room. "This is never going to work."

"All right," Tiger Shen said, as if they were at the end of a long conversation and had already said everything there was to say. He didn't look surprised, but then, he never did. He'd been carrying a small wicker basket, and now he put it down at the side of the bed as if it wasn't important; something inside clinked dully. "I'll talk to Three-Legged Li and ask him if there's any free floor space anywhere."

"There's a lot of free floor space," Sky said. He knew this hideout better than Li. He was more in charge of it than Li. At least, he thought he was. The tone of Tiger Shen's voice made him wonder. "There are caves all the way down the cliffside and at least half of them have some kind of flooring."

He'd inspected every nook and crevice before they'd settled here. Sky only approved of secret hideouts that were easy to break into when he was doing the break-in. This was an excellent location, where naturally-occuring caves had been carefully enlarged and fitted up to be rooms, large and small; some of them were linked by interior passages, whereas others only opened out to the cliff face, which was accessible by a complex system of broad paths, narrow paths, stone steps, rope ladders and wood bridges.

You had to know where you were going, particularly as half the cliff was over the water, invisible from the land side, and the other half was hidden by a tangle of lush greenery. Vines clambered up over the rock and the wood, and had to be cut back periodically.

"I know," Tiger Shen said mildly, because he'd been right there alongside Sky, doing the inspecting. "The caves with the good, level floors are filling up fast, though, with all the crates from the latest shipments."

That was true enough. There hadn't been time yet to go through another batch of ill-gotten goods from another Guild outpost and decide what needed to be done with it.

"Yes, but if you tell Li you want a particular cave for something, you'll get that cave. He works for you. He'll do what you tell him, including moving a few crates if they're in the way." Regardless of who was in charge, or who Tiger Shen thought was in charge, nobody was going to deny anything to the man who had saved the empire from ghosts and corruption. People might not have noticed the corruption, but they had definitely noticed the ghosts. "But what do you need floor space for?"

"To spread a bedroll on," Tiger Shen said. He went to the opposite corner and picked up his old bedroll. Sky's bedroll, next to it, suddenly looked very lonely.

"But this is your room." Sky watched the way Tiger Shen's back muscles moved as he straightened up. "That's your bed." Tiger Shen always looked calm, but now he looked as if someone had lacquered an extra layer of calm on top of his calm. Maybe that was a secret Spirit Monk technique. "Five Guild members had to work together to get it in here. If you wanted to stick with just a bedroll, you might have said so before Jian dropped one corner on his toes."

"You're the one who wanted a bed." Two layers of lacquer. It would probably have been convincing to anyone who hadn't seen Tiger Shen explode into action, out of a state of calm much like this one, and kick an opponent's teeth out through the back of his head. "I'll be fine with the bedroll."

Sky threw a pillow at him before he could lacquer his way out of the room. "Stop right there and tell me what you think we're talking about."

Tiger Shen caught the pillow, because of course he did. "Sleeping arrangements."

Sky walked up to him and tapped his chest. There was a lot of it to tap. "And why are you going to have your sleeping arrangements in a different room from the bed you just got?" He drew a deep breath. "Not to mention, in a different room from my sleeping arrangements."

It was difficult to make out any real emotions through that lacquered calm, even with all the practice Sky had watching Tiger Shen and appreciating what he saw. "You said this was never going to work. And if that's how you feel, it only makes sense to--"

Difficult, but not impossible. "I meant the bed, idiot." Sky kept a firm grip on the leather strap going down across Tiger Shen's chest. "It's not big enough."

Tiger Shen looked at the bed over Sky's shoulder and got a little less lacquered. "If that bed were any bigger, Jian would have lost more than just a toenail. You said you wanted a bed for two people, not for an entire Guild sleepover."

"I forgot to account for some factors." Standing so close to Tiger Shen, Sky had to fight two contrary urges: to back away so Tiger Shen didn't loom over him so damn much, and to lean in and just start licking at all that bare skin.

Tiger Shen didn't look underdressed. He made Sky feel overdressed. Since Sky usually went around in an open, sleeveless vest, that took some doing.

"You wanted a bed for two people," Tiger Shen said again, calmly, mildly. He probably wasn't going to kick anyone's teeth out. Probably. "You got a bed for two people."

"Yes, my delicate flower of daintiness, and you take up enough room for three." He tapped Tiger Shen's chest again, in a different place. He could probably keep on doing that for the rest of the day without repeating himself. Tiger Shen wasn't just half a head taller than him, he was about a wrestling champion's worth of muscles bigger, and Sky was not a small man. "You're the size of a young mountain."

The lacquer finally cracked, and Tiger Shen's eyes gleamed with something halfway between laughter and delight. "I don't believe anyone's ever called me that before."

"Flower or mountain?"

"Either one."

"I can't think why not." Sky tapped Tiger Shen's chest some more. At least, he intended to tap his fingers, in a firm and not at all suggestive manner. The way his hand slid sideways to stroke the breadth of shoulder that was precisely the problem with the width of the bed, or was it the other way around, was pure accident. Tiger Shen was just so touchable. "You were pretty convincing as Lady Fourteen Flowers."

"Flatterer." Tiger Shen's hand came up to cover his, and Sky stilled, becuse he hadn't intended to get physical before the question was settled. This attempt at propriety didn't work out as planned, though. When he looked up, the laughter and delight in Tiger Shen's eyes were gone as though he'd only imagined them. "I really can take my bedroll somewhere else," Tiger Shen said. He didn't move his hand away from Sky's, but somehow it became just a neutral body part that happened to be resting on one of Sky's, the gesture stripped of all intimacy. "The bed's yours, you're the one who wanted it. And it's up to you if you want to share it with anyone."

"My idiot flower of daintiness," Sky said. That wasn't what he'd meant to happen. At all. "I wanted a bed for two people so we could be two people in it."

"Mm." Tiger Shen was back to doing that calm Spirit Monk thing again. Damnation. "But if you think it's never going to work--"

"I meant the bed!" Sky said. He twisted his hand free, with more force than necessary, since Tiger Shen let him go at once. That was annoying, and then he had his hand back and didn't know what to do with it, which was also annoying. And he had a creeping feeling that he'd somehow been caught wrong-footed, which was most annoying of all. Things like that just didn't happen to suave rogues with poise and self-possession. "Not the... not _us_."

"You're not comfortable," Tiger Shen said. "With me. You're not comfortable sharing a bedroll--"

"A bedroll's not comfortable," Sky said. Which was the only reason why he'd insisted on keeping theirs separate, rather than sleeping pressed together like any other couple would have done a long time ago.

Yes, the chaste and supposedly-temporary solution was all his doing. But so was the bed all his doing. Because if they'd cuddled up tight, one thing would have led to another, on the floor of a cave in an uncomfortable and haphazard sort of way, and that just wouldn't be right.

And this had to be right. It was very important, and it had to be just right. Only now Sky was stuck with a bed that somehow didn't live up to the pictures in his head, and a Tiger Shen who was apparently resolved to misunderstand everything and go off to sleep by his lonesome in a dusty corner.

"I hoped that was the problem. But now there's a bed, and you say it's never going to work. If this isn't--" Another layer of laquer. A deep breath. "We were in a tense situation, and you made promises not knowing if we'd both be alive to see them kept. But in the time since then, you've tried to make it clear how you feel, I just refused to see it. If you'd rather be alone in that bed, I'll just take my things and move downstairs."

"No." Now Sky did know what to do with his hands. He put both of them flat on Tiger Shen's chest and pushed. Towards the bed, not towards the door. The bedroll fell to the floor, and good riddance. "That's not how I feel, believe me."

He wanted to see Tiger Shen laugh again. That was how all this had started -- with Sky wanting to make a very serious young man look a bit less as if the fate of the world rested on his excessively broad shoulders every minute of the day.

Of course, it turned out that the fate of the world really did rest on Tiger Shen's shoulders. But he also looked really good when he laughed, and the fact that he didn't laugh when he let himself be pushed to fall backwards onto the bed and its disarranged bolsters was a crime.

Without thinking too hard about it, Sky dropped down after him, and propped himself up on one forearm on Tiger Shen's chest so he could look him in the face. He tipped his head to one side, considering.

Tiger Shen allowed himself to be sidetracked. "What?"

"Maybe you should shave off those sideburn things as well," Sky said, narrowing his eyes as he tried to picture it.

Tiger Shen shook his head, accepting the sudden change of subject with his usual calm. "I'd look too monkish."

"You are a monk."

"And people would think I'm completely bald."

"Only until you turn around." Then they'd be hit in the face by the sweeping tail of Tiger Shen's hair, which Sky had insisted on braiding tightly to make it more like a whip. Sky wondered if Tiger Shen could be persuaded to put a ball of lead on the end. That would break a few noses. Of course, Sky would have to take care one of them wasn't his.

Tiger Shen looked amused, but then he drew a deeper breath -- Sky could feel it lifting his own body -- and said, "You're very good at distraction, but perhaps it would be best to solve this problem before bedtime tonight."

"It's not a _problem_ ," Sky said. "Precisely."

"Only in the way that you think it won't work." Lying like this, Sky could feel the complete steadiness of Tiger Shen's body, the slow and even heartbeat, the regular breathing. "And it's not just the bed, is it? Sky, I wouldn't hold it against you if you changed your mind. I would be fine either way. We can--"

"All I meant was that the bed doesn't seem big enough," Sky said. Which seemed like a kind of ridiculous concern now that they were--

"We're lying on it right now." Yes. That. Tiger Shen stretched one arm out to the side, demonstrating that there was actually quite a bit of bed not taken up by his young-mountain-sized body. "It seems fine to me, unless you have something very athletic in mind?"

"Perhaps just a _little_ athletic," Sky said, making the words warm and suggestive. Then he met Tiger Shen's eyes, clear and calm and completely fearless. He sighed. There were many things he was prepared to do for this man, but he hadn't quite expected the near-compulsion to be honest. "I haven't changed my mind. It's just been a long time since I had sex. Even longer since I had sex with a man."

This experience had to be right for Tiger Shen. The right bed. The right partner doing the right things. Sky had been putting it off because maybe there should be flowers, fancier bedclothes, more elegance and comfort. Which was unlikely to happen in an obscure Guild outpost, even if they were slowly turning it into more of a stylish headquarters.

No, if Sky wanted this to be right, he was the one who would have to make it right, and not with silk sheets they didn't have, either. All he had to give this man who had spoken face to face with spirits and goddesses was himself, and that didn't feel like enough, but it would have to do.

Tiger Shen looked even more amused, and at the same time even more calm. "Not as long as it's been for me."

"That seems unlikely. It was before I was married." Sky frowned in the face of that amusement, trying to do the math in his head. "And that was a long time ago. Before I was married, you would have been a child, and--"

"A virgin," Tiger Shen said. "And after you were married as well, and all the way up until now. My entire life, in fact. I was hoping we could do something about that." The amusement wasn't lacquered on; the smile was there in Tiger Shen's voice as well as in his eyes. "Perhaps I shouldn't have told you. You look terrified."

"Nonsense." He didn't. If he did, he had to stop right away, before the lack of flowers and silk sheets and pretty wall hangings and air that smelled of incense rather than the sea outside could really start to get to him. Sky had thought he was just trying to create a special moment for someone who didn't take enough of them, or rather, whose special moments all seemed to involve danger and supernatural elements.

This was a lot more than that.

"Yes," Tiger Shen said, and it took Sky a moment to realize Tiger Shen was probably agreeing with what he'd said, not what he'd thought. "It is."

"Then I'll stop," Sky said, hoping that he really had stopped. "I have to admit, though, it doesn't make sense. You were surrounded by other students all your life, weren't you? At some point, they must have noticed that you were," Sky tried to gesture at the face and body of the man he was lying on top of, " _you_."

"I don't know if they did. I wasn't very interested," Tiger Shen said. "They were like my brothers and sisters." He brought in his stretched-out arm and put the hand on Sky's chest instead, right where the vest hung open. "I'm interested now, but only if you are. If you think this won't work--"

"You really have to stop saying that," Sky said. "For the last time, I meant the bed, not what we will hopefully do in it." He tried to slow down his breathing, his heartbeat, knowing that Tiger Shen could feel it through his palm. If he'd been nervous and unsure before, it was nothing to what he was now, knowing that when they had sex it wouldn't just be their first time together but Tiger Shen's first time with anyone at all. The way Sky's body reacted had nothing to do with lack of desire, though. "You intimidate me a little, to be honest."

"That's not what I was hoping for." Tiger Shen moved his hand away. Sky could still feel it, a lingering imprint of warmth on his chest. He wanted it back again. "I just told you I have no experience. There's nothing intimidating about that."

Right. And Sky hadn't already been trying, possibly a little too hard, to make this a place and moment that would be even halfway to what Tiger Shen deserved. The admission of virginity had made things a thousand times worse. And this was _Tiger Shen_. He pressed his own free hand against Tiger Shen's chest just as Tiger Shen's hand had been on him.

"As long as I've known you, you've done everything very nearly perfectly on the first try." And people had definitely been intimidated by it. Those who survived, at least.

Tiger Shen smiled outright, and Sky felt something turn over in his chest. "I think I'm the one who should feel intimidated, if those are your expectations. But if it turns out you're right... are you really _worried_ because we might have good sex?"

"That would be ridiculous." Sky tried to gather up his nebulous unease to get a good look at it, or better yet, throw it away somewhere it would stop bothering him. "And I'm not worried." That was as close to an outright lie as he'd managed in the conversation, and it made him feel a little more like himself. He found half a crooked grin somewhere. Then the truth came bursting out again. "I just want things to be good for you. If anyone deserves it, it's you."

Tiger Shen deserved heavenly palaces, everything clean and perfect. All Sky had to offer was an outlaw outpost where no one ever remembered to sweep the floors. They'd been through worse -- a whole lot of very much worse, dirtier and bloodier and full of demons and people who tried to kill them, usually. Tiger Shen shone wherever he was, a brilliant gem in any setting. But Sky wanted him to have the _right_ setting.

"Oh." The warm smile wavered for a moment, but then it steadied and grew deeper, as if Tiger Shen was smiling not just with his mouth and his eyes but with his whole self. "Is that why we had to get a bed?"

It wasn't that Sky wanted Tiger Shen to be anyone other than who he was. No, Sky wouldn't change a single ridiculous-sized muscle on that amazing body, or any of the long hairs on his head, where he had hair. But it was true that with another person, Sky would have leaned over them and chuckled suavely and said something suggestive.

He was draped over the man like a blanket. He also had the weight of experience on his side, which ought to be considerable.

He just couldn't do it. It wasn't the truth, and no matter what he had been telling himself, he couldn't keep it up. They didn't have to get a bed because Tiger Shen was a special person who deserved every comfort -- oh, that was _true_ , but it wasn't the truth. Sky tried to call up all his years of slick conman experience and his reserves of slightly tawdry charm.

They failed him. All he could say was, "Yes. You deserve better than a quick tumble on a bedroll." He considered the magnificence of the young man beneath him. "You probably deserve better than me."

Tiger Shen took that just as Sky had expected. "No, I don't," he said, eyebrows drawing together. "And this isn't about what I deserve, is it? I thought it was because we wanted each other. If you're trying to say that you don't want to have sex with me--"

"I do want to!" Sky dropped his forehead on Tiger Shen's chest for a moment. "I do. I don't want you to doubt that." And that was definitely the truth, too. He did want to. His whole body was buzzing with how much he wanted to. He was just having some trouble with being the person who would make it happen.

"I don't want to doubt that." Tiger Shen's voice rumbled through his chest. "Especially not when you're lying right on top of me and it seems like maybe we might. But you know you could just get up and leave if you wanted."

Sky raised his head. "I'm not going to do that. I don't _want_ to do that." He wanted Tiger Shen, and he was going to stop saying and doing things that made Tiger Shen doubt it. "We finally have a bed, and we're both in it. Seems a shame to waste a moment like this."

"Mm." Tiger Shen hitched them a little higher up on the bed with an ease Sky found very, very sexy. "We can wait if you want to wait. There'll be more moments."

Now Sky narrowed his eyes. Tiger Shen sounded just a fraction too earnest. "I can't tell if you're making fun of me or trying to talk me out of this."

"I'm not trying to talk you out of this," Tiger Shen said, a little more earnest still.

Sky looked as stern as he could manage, sprawled on top of Tiger Shen and very happy to be there, at long last, despite the nagging feeling that this wasn't perfect after all, that it couldn't be good enough. "Good to know. If you're making fun of me, flower of my heart, you can stay a virgin for another twenty years."

The smile broke through. Tiger Shen's eyes were serious, though. "I don't care about the bed," he said. "The bed was all your idea. And we really can wait. All I care about is you, even when I'm making fun of you."

"I'm not the virgin who saved the world," Sky said. He looked at Tiger Shen, and his breath caught in his throat. No bed was going to be soft enough, no silk fine enough. Sky himself was never going to be good enough to touch this man the way he deserved.

And yet, Tiger Shen wanted him to do it.

Did Tiger Shen deserve to get what he wanted? Yes. Putting it like that made everything much simpler.

"You're not a virgin," Tiger Shen agreed. "But you were definitely there for the world-saving part, I remember that."

Sky made a quiet sound, because that wasn't how he would have described it. The parts he remembered best included pretending to betray Tiger Shen and leading enemies to him, getting an unfortunate injury that kept him from fighting at his side, and leaving Tiger Shen to face Death's Hand on his own, as if Sky had betrayed him for real. Not his finest hour. Sure, he'd managed to take out most of the henchmen and small fry first, but he wasn't sure that had even made a difference.

No, one of them had saved the empire and restored order to the spirit world; the other one had tried to help out from time to time, but the commemorative heroic statue wasn't going to be of Sky, that much was certain. Tiger Shen was the embodiment of legend, and centuries from now, someone would say, nice story, but obviously it can't be true, no one could really have been like that, no one could really have done all those things. As for Sky himself, he'd be lucky if his name was written correctly in the story about the sidekicks. He really wasn't the stuff an Eternal Companion was made of.

And yet.

No one was good enough for Tiger Shen, but Tiger Shen was lying here with him, warm and alive and clearly wanting to be just where he was. And maybe he was the most intimidating virgin in the world, but he wanted Sky, and Sky wanted him back, and now there was a bed and a quiet room and a chance to do something about that. And if life had taught Sky anything, it was to take hold of the present with both hands.

"I'm glad we've moved on to more peaceful times," Sky said. He stroked Tiger Shen's shoulder, because it was right there and because he could. "And in case I haven't made it clear, I'm fine with being in this bed with you, and I look forward to what I hope will be the first of many attempts to have really good sex."

"As long as it's not too much pressure for you," Tiger Shen said innocently. Sky hit his shoulder instead. "I want to kiss you. If you stay where you are and don't tell me not to, I will kiss you."

Sky grinned. "You're saying that like it's a threat." And people threatening to kiss him? That, he could deal with. Especially when it was someone he very much wanted to do it.

Tiger Shen curled a hand round the back of Sky's neck and pulled him down, slowly, brushing their mouths together like he was either a very experienced kisser, building up to something deeper and more intense, or a very inexperienced kisser who thought touching mouth to mouth was all there was to it. Sky didn't know what Tiger Shen might have gotten up to back in Two Rivers, apart from not actually having sex, but he turned his head a little, fitting them together at a better angle, to find out what would happen.

What happened was, of course, that Tiger Shen followed the movement perfectly -- not copying it, but responding to it, reacting just as he would on a training ground or in a fight, taking new physical knowledge and making it his own. He shifted under Sky, and the hand at the back of Sky's neck suggested how Sky himself might move, and they were somehow pressed more closely together and kissing like there'd be an exam later and they were determined to get perfect scores.

Sky tried to keep his mind on that -- not on getting a perfect score in a hypothetical exam, exactly, but on making this a really good kiss, on making the experience really good for Tiger Shen, who clearly didn't have a lot of it, and who was doing something with his tongue that -- that--

Sky had to break out of the kiss for a moment, just to breathe. Tiger Shen smiled at him, slow and pleased. "If it means kisses like that, the bed's already worth it."

"Maybe you shouldn't tell Jian that. He's not getting any kisses to compensate for his toenail." Sky's vest had fallen open, and there was a lot of very pleasant skin-on-skin contact, and a little that was less pleasant. He tapped his fingers against the broad leather strap that crossed Tiger Shen's chest. "Do you think you could take this off? I feel like the buckle's trying to get between us." Tiger Shen shrugged it off, and now there was nothing but an expanse of bare skin covering a lot of muscles. Really amazingly smooth skin. Sky trailed his fingertips over one shoulder. "Do you even have any scars?"

Tiger Shen shifted a tiny bit, and Sky tensed, responding to the look in Tiger Shen's eyes. "No." He looked very much like a young man who didn't want to talk about it. He was also a young man who'd spent his life learning to fight, and the last year fighting more and worse enemies than most people could even imagine. Sky had seen him bruised and bleeding entirely too often. He let his fingers stop halfway down the right arm, where he could have sworn there were two thin pink stripes left behind from Iron Soldier's last, desperate attack. "After I came back," Tiger Shen said, carefully not mentioning what he'd come back _from_ , "they were gone. And after that... I just heal up really well, these days. After."

After he'd been dead. Right.

Sky had said more than once that they were going to have a long talk about that some time. He'd meant it, too, because how often did you meet someone who'd died and come back to life? But every time he thought about starting that conversation, he got stuck on the fact that Tiger Shen had _died_. He remembered just how he'd felt, learning that. He remembered the desperate wish not to believe it that had made him seize on Dawn Star's feeling that they should all go to Dirge. He remembered doing everything to make that happen, supporting her completely, chivvying the others into moving faster, making arrangements, getting things done--

He wasn't sure he'd even really breathed, himself, until he saw Tiger Shen again, returned to them against all reason.

Sky let his head fall forward, pressed his face against Tiger Shen's shoulder and breathed deep now that he could, taking in the warm, slightly spicy scent that always clung to Tiger Shen's skin. Alive. He was alive and real and here, rubbing soothingly at the back of Sky's neck. That was really unnecessary, especially this long afterwards. "I wasn't worried," Sky said. His words were a little muffled.

"Ssshh. No. Of course not." Tiger Shen brought his other arm up, too, to wrap warmly around Sky's torso. It was impossible to doubt that he was alive and present right now, all the living strength of his body pressed up against Sky's.

"I wasn't worried," Sky said again. And it was true, too. His wife had died, his daughter had died, and just when he'd come to hope that his heart hadn't died with them, Tiger Shen had... No, he hadn't been _worried_. Sky thumped his fist against one broad shoulder, a bit harder than before. "Don't do that again." There wasn't going to be any death in this bed.

"I think it's inevitable at some point," Tiger Shen said. Sky thumped his fist a little harder still. "Ow." It sounded more like a pro forma complaint than an actual reaction. "All right, all right. No dying. I won't die. I'll never die, I'll just get older and older and wrinklier and wrinklier and withereder and... that's not a word, is it."

His arms around Sky were strong and sure, and Sky wanted more of the feeling that gave him. A lot more. Several lifetimes, by preference, although he'd settle for this one to start with, and it had better be a long one. He knew his Spirit Monk was right and death was inevitable at some point, but it was preferable to think of that point as being far, far away.

Sky kissed the shoulder he'd been talking into, brushing his lips over warm skin. He trailed his tongue over the rise of muscle where shoulder met neck and nibbled a little, but didn't bite down. "Perhaps we should get back to the kissing."

"Mm." Tiger Shen tilted his head a little to the side, giving Sky more room to kiss his neck. "I liked the kissing. And I like what you're doing now."

That was certainly incentive to keep doing it. The way Tiger Shen's hands moved over him was incentive, too. Especially when one hand slipped under his vest and stroked up his back, callused thumb scraping along his spine and making him shudder hard enough that he had to bite, after all.

Judging by the noise that got him, Tiger Shen did not at all mind being bitten. He tugged at Sky's vest, and Sky obligingly leaned back a little to wriggle out of it. The change in position meant that he was pressing down more firmly in some places, and Sky became intimately aware of just how much Tiger Shen liked the kissing. He already knew how much he himself liked the kissing, and he'd been ready to get into some serious grinding-down in a few more kisses' time, but even though he'd watched Tiger Shen a little more closely than what was possibly seemly in their travels together, he hadn't been able to get a clear idea of the size and thickness of the hard length that now rubbed up against his. 

Well. Even allowing for the padding effect of a couple of layers of sturdy fabric, there could be no doubt that Tiger Shen was an exceptionally large and well-built young man. In all ways.

"I trust you don't mind our, ah, current positions," Sky said. "If you were on top you might accidentally break my ribs." Although it wasn't really his ribs he was worried about. It just seemed like a good idea to him to keep the very large and very strong virgin in a position where Sky was the one who had more freedom of movement.

Tiger Shen just chuckled. "I thought I was the delicate flower, here." Now that Sky's upper body was bare, he began to stroke and caress with more ease and certainty. "Of course I don't mind. I want you to be comfortable." Every touch and caress was as startlingly expert as that thumb up Sky's spine had been, and had much the same effect. One large hand curved around the back of Sky's neck again. "Would you be comfortable if we did more kissing?"

"I don't think comfortable is the right word," Sky said, though he hoped the tone of his voice made clear that he was happy to be a bit uncomfortable in this particular good cause. He was aiming for a sexy purr, but it came out a little breathier than usual, which was probably because of the way Tiger Shen was stroking his shoulder.

Not that a shoulder was an erogenous zone or anything, and the way Tiger Shen's fingers moved shouldn't make the fine hairs stand up on the back of Sky's neck, either. He leaned down into another kiss and shifted his hips so they could grind against each other, although not too hard, because Tiger Shen might be new to this, but Sky was definitely too old and experienced to ruin his pants.

Tiger Shen's kisses were different now, more confident, kisses that went to Skys head like plum wine and would have drowned him completely if it hadn't been for Tiger Shen's hands, teasing him and drawing out shudders from both likely and unlikely places. Sky tilted his head so that Tiger Shen could run callused fingertips up and down the muscle that rose from the back of his shoulder to go all the way to the base of his skull. When Tiger Shen added a bit of careful pressure from his nails, Sky moaned.

He didn't resist when Tiger Shen shifted him a bit in order to kiss his jaw, his neck, his shoulder. It should have been awkward, lying on top as he was, but Tiger Shen managed to support Sky's weight with one hand and caress him with the other so deftly that Sky didn't realize how little he was doing to maintain his own balance until Tiger Shen's fingers flicked over his nipple and he trembled from head to toe and still did not slide off Tiger Shen's body. He'd long since given up on trying to hold up his own weight with his arms to keep from crushing his partner; no doubt Tiger Shen could be crushed, for instance by a large rock falling from a great height, but just Sky's body resting on his wasn't going to do it.

Sky had one arm curved around the back of Tiger Shen's head, encouraging him to come closer and apply lips and tongue and teeth to Sky's neck and shoulder and really any part of Sky he wanted to, because it all felt spine-tinglingly good. With his other hand, Sky stroked Tiger Shen's shoulder, enjoying the heat and thickness and solidity of it.

But the nipple thing, yes, that was enough to make him pay more attention to what was going on. Sky had always prided himself on being the kind of man who saw to his partner's pleasure before his own, even when he wasn't trying to come up with the perfect setting for his first time with someone he cared passionately about, and since this was Tiger Shen's first time with anyone at all, Sky really should be the one doing all the work, instead of getting lost in what he himself was feeling.

Even if Tiger Shen was the one making him feel it.

"No?" Tiger Shen said, fingertips five still points of heat on Sky's chest. There was nothing but matter-of-fact inquiry in his voice.

Sky snorted, because things might be going differently from what he'd anticipated, planned, expected, but he wasn't _stupid_. "Of course not no," he said. Then Tiger Shen did it again, stroking his nipple, tugging gently on it, and Sky's body prickled with heat all over. "Wait." That was a reasonable thing to say. He didn't want Tiger Shen to stop, he just needed a moment to breathe and to try out, "There's a lot I'd like to be doing for you, too."

Tiger Shen smiled at him. "I'm certainly not stopping you."

Tiger Shen was spread out under him on the bed, partly undressed and wholly eager, judging by the way he touched and the way he responded to being touched, the way his body pressed hotly against Sky's, the way he kissed. It was as easy as anything for Sky to caress those truly magnificent shoulders, to lick the same places on Tiger Shen's neck that Tiger Shen had stroked, to such intense effect, on him. To try a little careful biting again and feel Tiger Shen growl in approval.

Tiger Shen wasn't a standing-back-and-watching kind of person, though, wasn't someone who waited for his turn. Sky already knew that. Everything he'd seen Tiger Shen do, had seen Tiger Shen _learn_ \-- there'd been no waiting around, no thinking about it, Tiger Shen had just leapt right in. And this was the same, although less violent and dangerous, fortunately. As Sky touched Tiger Shen, Tiger Shen touched him right back, big clever hands finding places on Sky's body that responded in ways Sky had never even imagined.

No, Tiger Shen wasn't stopping him, exactly, but he was very good at getting Sky to forget his own name, let alone what he was doing.

He had to pull back to breathe for a moment. "How do you _do_ that?"

"Do what?" Tiger Shen's eyes were darker than usual, which was a good sign. The sizeable hardness between his legs was also something of a clue that he wasn't unaffected by what they were doing.

Sky bit his lip, reminding himself not to get distracted, even though there was so much of Tiger Shen to get distracted by. "The way you touch me gives the impression that you're a very experienced virgin." No, no, that sounded all wrong. "I don't mean to suggest that you're lying to me, of course." So why did it sound as if that was exactly what he was implying? Sky groaned and tried again. "It feels as if you know things about my body that I didn't know myself."

Tiget Shen's hands stilled. "Is that a roundabout way of saying you want me to stop this?"

In response, Sky thrust his hips a little, making it very clear that he was just as hard as Tiger Shen. "I like the way you touch me, flower." The ready laughter came back and danced in Tiger Shen's eyes. "I like it very much. It's just unexpected, after that confession of yours."

Tiger Shen had a sweet, open smile that made you think he ought to have dimples. Back on the road, in the early days, Sky had told himself that he only watched Tiger Shen so closely, so often, because he wanted to find out whether that was true or not. Now, with Tiger Shen smiling at him from close range, it wasn't the possibility of dimples he cared about.

"I've trained all my life to be a fighter," Tiger Shen said. "I know how the body works and where its sensitive places are. My training was concerned with exploiting those weaknesses in a different way, but the knowledge is the same."

Sky snorted. "Tell that to your opponents." Tiger Shen's smile deepened. That really was a dimple. How could Sky have missed the existence of a dimple?

"I also learned a lot from an unexpected source. Do you remember Doctor An?"

"No," Sky said. The name brought up an image in his mind, though. "Wait, yes. Wasn't she the blind acupuncturist who worked out of the Arena in the Imperial City?"

"That's her. She had some very educational charts of the human body and its energy flow, which she gave to me, since she couldn't use them and I was interested." He brushed his fingertips over the back of Sky's neck. "I didn't think, back then, that this was what I'd be doing with the knowledge."

"I certainly have no complaints," Sky said a little shakily. "I had no idea you spent that much time with the lady doctor. Next you'll be telling me you learned acupuncture."

"There wasn't a lot to do between matches except talk to people," Tiger Shen said. "Some of the other fighters would go down to the Heart of the Empire during their breaks, but I don't drink. And no, I didn't learn acupuncture, she said that would take years."

Because of course he'd asked. Sky wasn't really surprised. He kissed under Tiger Shen's ear, then the earlobe, then up along the outside curve of the ear. Tiger Shen made a pleased sound and stroked Sky's back, and maybe the lines he was tracing wouldn't have been out of place on an anatomy chart, but Sky had never felt like this looking at an anatomy chart. Maybe someone else with the same knowledge could have brought out the same shivery pleasure in him, but he wasn't too sure of that. Tiger Shen was special in many ways.

And not the least of those ways was his strength. He had no trouble moving and holding Sky so that he could kiss and lick Sky's ear the same way Sky had done to his, and that probably meant he liked it a great deal, so Sky was determined to do it some more, only Tiger Shen's fingers tugged and flicked at his nipple again and he forgot how to think. Tiger Shen nipped at his earlobe and then pulled him up higher on the bed, one hand reaching down to shift his legs so they were spread on either side of Tiger Shen's torso, and he was about to find his voice -- no, really -- and ask what was the purpose, here, when Tiger Shen licked across his nipple.

"Ngh," Sky said. Tiger Shen chuckled, and the sensation of breath against wet skin was almost too much for Sky to handle. He trembled like a struck gong, his reaction so intense he felt it should be as loud as a struck gong as well. "You did that on purpose," he managed to get out once he could speak again.

"Of course I did it on purpose," Tiger Shen said, and Sky couldn't see his eyes, but the smile was there in his voice. He licked across the other nipple. "I'm trying very hard to make you feel good."

"It's working," Sky said, stretching out an unsteady hand to brace himself against one of the bedposts, because he was so high up now that he could actually reach. He didn't need the support, Tiger Shen was holding him up, but he had to do something to carry his own weight, here.

That thought lasted for all of a breath. Then Tiger Shen's free hand did something to Sky's leg, a long heated caress that curved up over his hip and his ass, and Sky nearly pitched forward despite his own and Tiger Shen's efforts. He wasn't prepared for that, and his clothing pulled uncomfortably at him.

"I'm sorry," Tiger Shen said, breaking off the caress. "Maybe I'm remembering that diagram poorly."

"You just took me by surprise," Sky said, his heart beating so hard he could taste it. "And, ah, my trousers are rather tight in this position."

Tiger Shen started to ease him back again, and Sky let go of the bedpost and moved the way Tiger Shen's hands wanted him to, until he was sitting back astride Tiger Shen's hips and they could see each other again. Tiger Shen's voice was mild and smooth as he asked, "Would you like to take them off?"

That should have been an easy enough question to answer. Particularly since yes, Sky did want to take them off, he wanted both of them to take all their clothes off. To have Tiger Shen spread out naked underneath him in a bed would be a dream come true, or actually several dreams come true.

And it wasn't as if Tiger Shen would do anything he didn't like. Sky huffed a little to himself. Apparently the truth was that whatever Tiger Shen did, he liked. That was the problem, if it could be called a problem. Nothing here followed the plan that Sky... should probably have had, for all the good it would have done him. All he'd managed was to fret over the bed, and although that had ultimately gotten them here, he had no idea how. Sky was trying to show his beloved, who also happened to be a virgin, a good time, only every touch of Tiger Shen's hands and mouth made him want to collapse in a trembling heap of yes. That wasn't the way this was supposed to go.

And he'd been quiet for too long; Tiger Shen's steady gaze up at him had turned from enquiring to resigned. "No!" Sky said quickly, and then, when he saw the layers of lacquer beginning to cover up Tiger Shen's essential sweetness, "I mean, yes! Of course I would like to do that." He kissed Tiger Shen's nose and scrambled off the bed, and slipped out of his clothes, quite the least smooth he'd ever been in this situation since he'd been a teenager.

But Tiger Shen was smiling at him again. Also watching him very appreciatively, which made Sky feel better when he turned back towards the bed. About to get into his previous position, he was stopped by Tiger Shen's outstretched hand. "I just want to look at you for a moment."

"Oh." Sky wasn't accustomed to just standing naked and being looked at. He was reasonably confident in his own looks -- he would certainly not have been successful in many of his endeavors if he hadn't known how to use his face and body to best effect -- but the way Tiger Shen studied him wasn't in the manner of someone who had been charmed, precisely. Someone who liked what he saw, yes, and wasn't that fortunate, but Sky couldn't shake a suspicion that Tiger Shen was mapping out diagrams of energy flow on his body, making a plan of attack. To distract from this (himself or Tiger Shen, Sky wasn't sure), Sky said, "You could get undressed as well, you know. It seems only fair."

Tiger Shen sat up and took off his boots, then wriggled out of what remained of his clothing in the manner of someone who was used to undressing around others and didn't think twice about it.

It wasn't as if he had anything to hide. Tiger Shen was a magnificently built young man in every way, with that goddess-granted perfect skin covering implausibly perfect muscles. He was also of a size to make others feel both covetous and unnerved, and maybe a little personally inadequate.

Sky shook his head. It wasn't about any abstract, theoretical others, it was about him. He watched covetously, and maybe still a little nervously, as Tiger Shen pulled that basket he'd been carrying over where it could be easily reached from his position on the bed, and those feelings only intensified as Tiger Shen lay back again, stretching out a hand that didn't say stop, a hand that was an invitation to come closer.

If he wanted to.

Yes, he wanted to. He most definitely wanted to.

Sky climbed back on the bed, careful where he put his knees, and ended up on top of Tiger Shen again, chest to chest and very shortly mouth to mouth, with his legs spread to either side of Tiger Shen's hips, as before. He would have tried to hold back, to hold himself up, except that Tiger Shen put a hand in the small of his back and pressed down, grinding them together. Sky made a noise into the kiss.

It wasn't right, it was completely unreasonable, that he was the one who felt like a virgin, here. He knew how sex worked. He'd had sex before. Good sex. Lots of it.

Sky shifted his hips of his own accord, just to feel the way they were pressed together, and thought dizzily that Tiger Shen really was big enough to take up the entire bed. Tiger Shen apparently also really liked it when Sky rubbed their bodies together like that; his noises were all approval, and his hands were encouraging.

Gods and spirits, there was so much of him, and Sky wanted to touch him all over. Kiss him, yes, lick his chest, stroke his back, nibble on his thighs, and his--

Sky stumbled to a halt inside his own head. Not because he had trouble with what he wanted, but because he wasn't sure about the words he wanted to use for it. His wife had always been the blunt one, but he didn't want to think about his wife now, or use any of her _always said_ or _never did_ as guides for how this relationship would work.

And he didn't exactly use words for what he was thinking about, when he did think about it, but it would be useful now -- he'd certainly sound like a more suave sex partner if he could tell Tiger Shen which part of his anatomy he wanted to suck. Or at least try to suck. He was seriously out of practice, and given the size of the member in question, maybe he'd better start with just licking.

"Is something wrong?" 

Sky wasn't surprised by the question. Tiger Shen was not what anyone would call unobservant, and he kept noticing every time Sky stumbled to a halt, even if it was only inside his own head. Tiger Shen also sounded as if he was equally prepared for Sky to tell him there was a rat demon in the corner as he was to hear more about how maybe they should slow down or stop. Sky had no doubt that Tiger Shen would accept, and deal with, either answer.

Well, there was no demon of any kind, which was good, because Sky didn't want to live with vermin in the house, and no, he didn't think they should slow down. He definitely didn't think they should stop. He was done hesitating and vacillating and generally acting as though he was the virgin, even if he had to remind himself every couple of minutes that he was actually the experienced one and Tiger Shen, at least in theory, didn't know what he was doing.

"Nothing is wrong," he said, kissing Tiger Shen's shoulder. "I was just thinking about all the things I want to do to you."

"Thinking." Tiger Shen dragged his nail down Sky's spine again, in just the way that made him shake. Oh. _Oh_. Tiger Shen totally knew what he was doing. "Maybe you should just get on with it. Show me all those things."

"It would be my pleasure," Sky said, a little more unsteadily than he'd planned. He kissed down across Tiger Shen's chest, a bit randomly, but he remembered a few of the touches that had been very shiver-inducing on him, and tried to replicate them as best he could. In particular, he paid attention to Tiger Shen's nipples, and was pleased to feel them grow tight and hard under his tongue.

Shifting downwards meant he got to lick a lot of deceptively smooth stomach, and then he was faced with Tiger Shen's -- pick a word -- cock, which, like the rest of him, was big and hard and a little intimidating. Sky reminded himself that he was not the virgin here, he was not intimidated, and it was definitely in his own interest to teach Tiger Shen everything he knew about oral sex. With any luck, he'd benefit from giving his partner good habits. So he licked, carefully but not cautiously, at least not until he realized that Tiger Shen's hand was curved around his head, tightening, and Tiger Shen had a grip like a golem.

Having his skull crushed like an egg would not be very sexy, and Sky untangled Tiger Shen's fingers from his hair and curled them against a blanket instead, just as a suggestion. He sucked in the head of Tiger Shen's cock, tonguing the velvet-soft skin, and heard a sound that he was very glad was the blanket and not his hair.

It had definitely been a while since he'd done any cocksucking, and his jaw started to ache much sooner than he'd anticipated, but it didn't take him long at all to remember why he liked the act. There was a raw intimacy to it, and he could feel the response to everything he did. The taste filled his mouth, clean salty skin and drops of something sharper, slicker. Sky enjoyed feeling his lips stretch, and he made a slow exploration with his tongue, learning shape and heft and weight.

When he pulled off to lick long, leisurely stripes up the shaft, Tiger Shen said, "I'd like to try that." Sky lifted his head enough to see that Tiger Shen looked thoughtful. "If you turned around, we could both do it at the same time."

Sky shook his head. "I don't recommend trying to keep your attention on those two things at the same time, not for a first attempt. Although we will, I hope, have plenty of opportunities later." To tell the truth, what he felt went a little beyond hoping. After putting this off for so long, he was now wondering what kind of fool he'd been, and if he could get away with keeping Tiger Shen in this bed for at least the next few days. Just learning the way Tiger Shen felt in his mouth would take him, mm, a considerable time.

Tiger Shen, who wasn't privy to this private timeline, said consideringly, "That does seem like a good point." Then he reached down and hauled Sky up, a process that involved a lot of skin sliding against skin and Sky trying to make sure he didn't put his knees or elbows wrong, until he was precariously balanced over Tiger Shen's chest, legs spread wide, and Tiger Shen looked up at him and grinned and tugged his hips forward.

Sky had to clutch at a bedpost again to keep his balance, so he didn't see the moment when Tiger Shen first kissed the head of his erection. He felt it, though. Oh, did he feel it. A soft kiss at first, like the gentle brush of lips that had started this encounter, and then, unsurprisingly, another kiss that was deeper and more intense and involved a lot more tongue.

To call Tiger Shen a fast learner was unfair to all the other fast learners in the world. There was no hesitation in the way his lips moved, the way his tongue made slow spirals of investigation. He had a firm grip on Sky's hips and moved him, rather than trying to move his head. Sky didn't try to resist, or to find a pace of his own. This was all entirely up to Tiger Shen, and Sky wasn't going to try to decide for him how he was going to do it. If Tiger Shen wanted to manhandle Sky a little while he was figuring out oral sex, so be it. Sky could live with that.

Or, since he was telling the truth even to himself today, he could be turned on by that. That swoopy feeling inside that he'd been so determinedly not thinking about intensified every time Tiger Shen moved him him around and positioned him. Maybe he should be taking charge more, try to instruct a little, to be experienced and sensible and not let the virgin do all the work.

Like every time so far when he'd thought that, it didn't make any difference to what was actually happening. It was clear that Tiger Shen enjoyed doing all the work, or most of it, anyway. Sky wasn't going to tell him he was doing it all wrong. Particularly when he wasn't doing _anything_ wrong. Sky clung to the bedpost and groaned, because Tiger Shen was sucking him and caressing his legs and his hips and his ass, and it felt incredible.

Those big, strong fingers gripped his ass, pulling his ass cheeks slightly apart and starting to tease the sensitive skin between them, and Sky immediately broke his resolution to let Tiger Shen do things all his own way. "Wait," he gasped. "I don't want to come yet." 

Besides, it was polite not to come in the virgin's mouth, right?

Tiger Shen looked up with smiling eyes and the head of Sky's cock practically resting on his lower lip, and Sky gripped the bedpost so hard something creaked, probably his fingers. "Why not?"

Sky backed away slowly from the edge. "Because that's not," he said, and let go of the bedpost, trying to look like his usual self. "There's no hurry, is there?"

The dimple made an appearance again. "No." Tiger Shen licked, and held Sky up by the hips when his knees shook in response. "Slow is good."

"That would be more convincing," Sky said, slowly because how could he not, "if you didn't constantly pretend to be slow to trick your opponents into errors."

Tiger Shen's smile deepened enough that the dimple made an appearance. "You're not an opponent," he pointed out, steadying Sky as Sky knee-walked backwards until he was astride Tiger Shen's hips again. "We're doing this together, I hope, not... against each other? At each other?"

That made Sky grin as he settled down, and distracted him a little from the sensation of his own erection pressing against Tiger Shen's abdomen, and Tiger Shen's pressing against his. He wanted to taste it again, wanted to spend more time licking Tiger Shen in places no one ever had before, but they had a bed and they had all the time in the world, or at least all the time the gods would let them have. He was finally starting to believe that. "Oh, I don't know, you could kiss at me a bit," he said.

"In your general direction, you mean?" But Tiger Shen caught him around the back of the neck and pulled him into a real kiss, hot and deep and serious, and Sky was happy to let it take him to a place where his mind went fuzzy around the edges. He lost track of most things that weren't Tiger Shen's mouth, Tiger Shen's tongue, owning the kiss between them until Tiger Shen broke away to lick and suck at his neck. Sky only remembered he had different parts of his body when Tiger Shen's thumb trailed along the crease of his ass again and he shuddered. "I like the way you like that," Tiger Shen said, repeating the caress over and over.

Sky definitely liked it, and now that he didn't have to contend with the immediacy of a mouth on his cock as well, he could enjoy the touch without feeling that he was about to come any moment. Since this was Tiger Shen doing the touching, there wasn't any of the too-quick uncertainty of a novice about it; the caresses were slow and steady and investigative, dipping deeper and deeper in lazy swoops until the pad of Tiger Shen's thumb rubbed across Sky's tightly-furled hole.

The calluses on Tiger Shen's hands felt amazingly good in a number of places, but this wasn't one of them; there were times when the chafing of skin on skin far outweighed the pleasure, and Sky tensed in a new way. "I think," he began to say, face pressed into Tiger Shen's neck.

Tiger Shen had already stopped, because of course he could tell a bad tensing-up from a good one without difficulty. "Hang on," he said, and it wasn't until he began to shift under Sky that Sky realized he meant that literally. He fished into the basket at the side of the bed, and something clinked again.

"I meant to ask you about that before," Sky said, trying to look back over his shoulder. "I thought someone had sent you wine, not knowing that you wouldn't drink it yourself."

"It's not wine," Tiger Shen said, taking out a bottle and doing something behind Sky's back. Then his hands were back on Sky's ass and his thumb slid down, touch changed and softened by a layer of thick oil. Sky groaned into Tiger Shen's neck, open-mouthed. That was _good_.

"I hope that's not cooking oil," he managed to say.

"Of course it's not cooking oil." Tiger Shen mouthed at the edge of his ear. "It's meant to outline muscles and make it easier to trace energy flows and clear away tension."

Sky tried to gather his wandering thoughts. "Someone gave you massage oil? I bet they were hoping you would use it on them."

The sound of Tiger Shen chuckling was a deep rumble, almost more felt than heard, even with his mouth right by Sky's ear. "Nobody gave it to me. I got it myself. For you."

"Excellent investment," Sky said. "I'm feeling very... tense." He thrust down, then pushed back against the pressure of Tiger Shen's thumb. "It's very considerate of you to want to, oh, do something about it."

"I hoped you would feel that way." People usually thought Tiger Shen sounded serious all the time. As they got to know him better, they started to wonder if he actually sounded deadpan all the time. Sky had long since stopped wondering.

The oil definitely worked as advertised; Sky could feel that particular tension yield in the most delicious way as Tiger Shen's thumb worked him, pressed against him, rubbed up and down and around and finally began to slip inside. He couldn't have said how long it took. Tiger Shen was slow and patient as water on stone, and Sky himself was busy nibbling on Tiger Shen's shoulder, or panting into it.

His erection softened a bit in the process. Sky didn't notice it happening, there were so many other sensations clamoring for his attention, but then Tiger Shen's thumb was inside him, pressing down firmly on a spot that made him go fully hard again so fast he felt light-headed. He definitely noticed that. He rolled his hips, dragging alongside Tiger Shen's thick cock, a steady hard pressure that made Sky wonder if it was a result of youthful vigor or monkish body control. Although Spirit Monk techniques would presumably not be all about the body, would they?

Sky lifted his head. "Shouldn't you be," he sucked in air between his teeth as Tiger Shen worked his ass with a slow efficiency that was much more of a turn-on than any deliberate sensual caress would have been, "rubbing my spiritual manifestation instead, Spirit Monk of mine?"

Tiger Shen's eyes laughed at him. "That's an advanced technique. I probably won't learn to do it properly until I'm old and grey."

Sky snorted, because Tiger Shen still wasn't a slow learner. Then again, he didn't actually feel any urge to get his spirit massaged, not when what was happening to his body took up all his attention. "I suppose," he rolled his hips again, "this will have to do in the," oh, and he'd been hoping he could get the whole sentence out without having to stop to gasp, "in the meantime." He kissed the corner of Tiger Shen's mouth. "Only because you're so good at it, mind."

"And here I was planning to ask you how I could make it better for you."

At this reminder that he was in bed with the most self-assured virgin in the world, Sky bit his own lip to try to ground himself, because that was exactly the kind of thing _he_ should be thinking, asking, instead of losing himself to Tiger Shen's admittedly amazing touches. This was really not how he'd thought their first time together would go. Not that he was complaining.

"I'm not sure I could survive this hypothetical better," he said and kissed the corner of Tiger Shen's mouth again, the underside of his jaw, down along his neck. "Where's that oil you were using?"

"Here. Should I add more of it?"

"A little more," Sky said, because while he was not normally someone who even paid lip-service to better safe than sorry, he wanted this to be good and better than good for Tiger Shen. "Put some here in my palm as well. Thank you." He sat up, which changed the angle and sent sparks skittering up his spine. Sky put his oily hand on Tiger Shen's cock and began to slick it up, and if he hadn't been watching Tiger Shen so closely he might have missed the darkened eyes, the slow blink, the deeper inhalation. His Spirit Monk wasn't unmoved, thanks be to the heavens.

Tiger Shen felt fantastic in his hand, the heat and the heft of him, the sheer girth that made Sky wonder if he was perhaps being just a little over-ambitious, despite the extra oil. It had been a long time. But he wanted. Tiger Shen turned his wrist and shoved his thumb deeper, and Sky flushed hot with just how much he wanted. He tightened the grip of his hand, and Tiger Shen grunted. "Not quite that hard."

"Sorry." Sky eased up again. "Now put your right hand somewhere else, please." He shifted, rising higher on his knees, and Tiger Shen steadied him -- with his left hand, thankfully -- as he tried to find the best position, the angle that would let him fit the two of them together as smoothly as possible. Tiger Shen lay as still as Sky could have wanted, letting him do it all his own way, and breathed a little too regularly, in the way of someone who needed something to focus on.

Sky could have done with that, too. His own breathing was definitely unsteady. He twisted a little, and there, that was it, he was stretched wide and sinking down, thighs shaking as he tried to go slow.

He made a sound deep in his throat, and Tiger Shen's steadying grip bit into his hip. Sky made another sound entirely. Tiger Shen's fingers brushed lightly over the marks they'd just left. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"

"It's fine," Sky said, relieved that the most self-assured virgin in the world was in fact human, "just hold still a while longer, let me--" He moaned louder this time. "Did I mention," he panted, "that you're the size of a young mountain?"

Tiger Shen burst out laughing, and Sky slid down another inch, feeling the vibrations. "Not there, I hope."

"You should be glad I'm not calling it a delicate and dainty flower." Sky pulled up a little and pressed back down. Everything about Tiger Shen was ridiculously outsized, so why not this, too? Sky worked himself down as slowly and carefully as he could manage, and Tiger Shen didn't clutch at him now even though he made a lot of those noises. Good.

He put his hands on Tiger Shen's chest and began to rock up and down, going a little deeper each time, balancing carefully between more sensation and too much sensation, watching Tiger Shen's face because the goal here was for one of them to be overwhelmed by the pleasure and it ought to be the inexperienced one, the one who was actually having sex for the first time, the one who... was sliding his left hand from Sky's hip up his side, touching places that had never reacted that way to being touched before, reaching Sky's right nipple and grasping it in his fingertips and tugging, not too hard, but definitely hard enough.

Sky groaned as the thick, dull pleasure from his ass and the sharp, bright pleasure from his nipple wound around each other in his body, a spiral pulling tighter and tighter like in one of Kang's absurd wind-up toys. He moved faster, pushing down and leaning back, reaching behind himself for support against Tiger Shen's legs instead, and then Tiger Shen pulled his knees up to make it easier and the angle of his hips shifted, the angle inside Sky shifted, and everything was perfect and glorious and Sky didn't even know what that noise was, tearing out of him.

He moved just the way he wanted, now, keeping Tiger Shen all the way inside and just grinding on the thick shaft, waves of heat going through him. Tiger Shen's hand dropped from his chest and closed around his cock, and Sky was lost, he was completely gone, he was fireworks and comets and everything bright and explosive and ephemeral--

The sight of his semen spilling over Tiger Shen's skin in a sticky mess was almost enough in itself to set off a second round of fireworks. Especially when Tiger Shen trailed his fingers through it, then raised them to his face to taste what he'd touched.

The way he wrinkled his nose was unexpectedly adorable. "That's probably an acquired taste," Tiger Shen said.

Sky shrugged. "Some people like it, I'm told." He tried to straighten up a little, and realized Tiger Shen was still just as hard, inside him. "Oh, you can't be real." When he began to move again, finding out what it felt like now that he wasn't driven by his own urges, Tiger Shen did that controlled breathing thing again. "No," Sky said, leaning forward so he could look Tiger Shen in the eyes. "This is all for you. Let go." He stroked the places on Tiger Shen's shoulder and neck that Tiger Shen had touched so successfully on him.

"I don't know if I can." Tiger Shen still had a look on his face that Sky recognized from some of their most hair-raising adventures, like he'd made himself a wall between the world and some imminent catastrophe. Like only perfect control and steady breathing on his part was keeping disaster at bay.

Well. Sky wasn't having any of that. What was going on between them was about as far from a disaster as anything could possibly be, and he wanted Tiger Shen to feel it, to revel in it. He leaned forward even more, annoyed that he couldn't reach to kiss properly -- he wanted to, but if he pulled off Tiger Shen's cock that much, his hopelessly self-sacrificing Spirit Monk would probably think that meant they had to stop. "Yes, you can." An attempt to clench down made Tiger Shen's breathing deepen even more. "I'm not going to do all the work for you, my lazy flower. Move."

Tiger Shen took another deep breath, two, three, and then he grabbed hold of Sky and twisted them both around, bodies still joined, until Sky was propped against the bed on his shoulders and upper back, while Tiger Shen held his lower body up with a massive forearm and thrust into him so hard the bed shook.

Or maybe that was just Sky, shaking. Every thrust punched the air out of him, his spine protested, his hair was snarling into a sweaty mess where it rubbed against the bedclothes, and all he could think was that next time they did this, it was going to be _before_ he'd already orgasmed.

Even like this, even when Sky had encouraged him to take his own pleasure, even though it was his first time with another person, Tiger Shen wasn't going fast. Hard yes, steady yes, but he wasn't speeding his thrusts up to that frantic now-now-now pace.

That had to be the way he liked it, then. Slow and steady. He couldn't be trying to pleasure Sky, not now, not like this, not again. Not in this position, not with the way he was holding Sky to be at the right angle for him to thrust into. No, Tiger Shen was finally being selfish, taking what he wanted, and the way it made Sky feel was just a coincidence.

Because those hard, deep thrusts were rubbing right across a spot inside him that should be painfully oversensitive, or going numb, or... or something, and first Sky thought it would be one thing, and then he thought it was the other, and then he realized he was whining through his teeth in a way only intense physical sensation could draw from him, feeling a strange buildup of heat that he couldn't put a name to and didn't know if he liked. Except that he did. It was just strange. His cock didn't even twitch, but the feeling that wasn't quite numbness, wasn't quite overstimulation, kept growing.

If he'd been getting hard -- if he hadn't just come, if he hadn't still been limp with satisfaction in more ways than one -- he would have called this arousal. His body, completely unconcerned with what words his mind chose to use, kept right on experiencing this intense physical sensation, growing increasingly aroused in every way but the most obvious.

Impossible that this was happening to him, and even more impossible that Tiger Shen was doing it on purpose. He couldn't be. No virgin desperate for his own completion could be so intent on his partner that he managed to draw out a reaction that couldn't even happen. Sky clenched one hand in the sheets. He knew his body. This wasn't how it worked.

Pleasure was building up thickly in his ass, in his hips, with every well-aimed thrust. Pleasure was hovering along his spine, around his shoulders, trailing in invisible loops over his head.

Impossible. Of course it was impossible. And of course it was happening, because this was Tiger Shen, and that word had no meaning around him. He'd probably seen a diagram, Sky thought wildly, he was reading the energy flows of Sky's body, he was... terribly good at something he'd never done before and hopelessly unselfish in the way he did it, because of course he was. He had to stop doing this ridiculous, unnecessary, impossible thing and take what he wanted for once...

Sky moaned. Maybe it could wait a little longer. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He followed the pleasure, because he wanted to find out where it would go, because Tiger Shen was presumably doing this for him and it would be rude to, to--

But if he wasn't hard, how could this lead to the usual ending? The pleasure and arousal had nowhere to go. No, Tiger Shen ought to stop this, ought to see to the demands of his own body instead of making false promises to Sky's. The thrusts had to be too slow to be what Tiger Shen really needed, even if the pace was really doing... something... for Sky. Sky could hear the echo of his own voice pointing out that Tiger Shen always pretended to be slow to trick his opponents.

He wasn't an opponent. His body kept responding as if it believed in this good feeling, this impossible pleasure that just kept growing, building around him like a thickening haze, a pleasure that was both like and unlike the glittery ecstasy of before. If it was a trick, his body had bought into it completely. Sky couldn't stop moaning, glaring up at Tiger Shen because this couldn't be happening, there was nothing that could happen, this strange tension twisting inside him had nowhere to go and he'd just be unaccountably wrought-up and frustrated once Tiger Shen had finally reached his own completion.

This was ridiculous.

This felt so good.

Tiger Shen grinned at him, warm and open. "A little faster?"

" _Yes_ ," Sky said before he could stop himself, "just -- you have to--" He wanted to reach out and thump Tiger Shen's chest again. He only got as far as gripping Tiger Shen's arm before Tiger Shen started moving a little faster, as promised, and the haze of pleasure flared, impossible and unstoppable, and he had a few quivering moments of warning, gasping out, "But I can't--"

And then he did.

Pleasure blossomed out of him like a paper flower unfurling in water, something tight and scrunched-up that was set free and found its true shape. Sky was expanding, too, as if he had to make room for all the deep joy his body could hold and then some. He was moving through it, it was moving through him, and there were no words to describe what happened, it was just impossible and astonishing and right.

Sky floated in a timeless nowhere of ecstasy, a separate heaven created just for this, a bubble of perfection with exactly as much room as needed. When linearity reclaimed him, he landed in his body with a thump, sweaty and awkward and with Tiger Shen staring down at him like he was a divine vision in fresh white silk.

"I hoped that would work," Tiger Shen said.

Sky groaned and uncurled a leg that was threatening to cramp up. Tiger Shen immediately shifted his grip and started to straighten up. Sky wrapped his other leg around Tiger Shen's hips, holding him in place before their bodies could separate. "My exasperating flower," he said, as smoothly as his gasps for air would let him. "Yes, it worked, and we'll talk about it later, trust me. But right now, I want to know what I can do to make sure you reach your own peak of satisfaction."

The breath Tiger Shen drew was ever so slightly ragged. "I like that look on your face," he said.

"You can look at my face as much as you want," Sky said, trying to use his leg around Tiger Shen's hips to set a rhythm. He wasn't in a position where he could control their movements any longer, and if he told Tiger Shen to get on with it before Sky became too sore, Tiger Shen would probably do the annoyingly selfless thing and insist on stopping.

Which really wasn't the goal, here. How could it be such a challenge to make a virgin have an orgasm?

"For the rest of my life, then," Tiger Shen said, and Sky tried to hold on to his inner grumbly monologue, but he couldn't, he just couldn't. Tiger Shen was too good to be true, a fantastic fighter and a fantastic lover and a hopelessly altruistic do-gooder and, apparently, a sappy romantic. Sky wanted to hit him, and also, kiss him.

He settled for looking up through his eyelashes with a hint of a smile on his face, a look that had worked on a surprising number of people in a wide variety of circumstances, and saying, "Flower of my heart, could you please turn us around again so I'm on top?"

Sky moved his leg out of the way first, clamping his knees around Tiger Shen's hips, trusting Tiger Shen to take care of the lifting and turning and rearranging while Sky made sure their bodies stayed connected. He ended up half-lying on top of Tiger Shen, pushed himself more upright, and hissed when his own weight pressed him down into a deeper joining. Sky was probably going to feel this for days.

But those days were still in the future, so he braced himself and began to roll his hips, grinding down, keeping his movements small and pacing them to the way Tiger Shen looked, the way he breathed. He was getting better at reading Tiger Shen's reactions; of course, it was a lot easier now that he wasn't being overwhelmed by what was happening to his own body. No matter how much Tiger Shen liked _that look on your face_ , Sky was not going to keep having orgasm after orgasm for his viewing pleasure. Firstly, because it wasn't physically possible, and secondly because he'd probably die from having Tiger Shen trying to prove that first statement wrong.

Sky chuckled to himself as he moved, and Tiger Shen's hand on his thigh clenched a little tighter, so apparently it felt good. He plucked at Tiger Shen's nipples, drawing them up tight, matching the rhythm there to the movements of his hips. When he curved his back to change the angle a bit, to see if that was more comfortable for him and with any luck better for his partner, one of his hands skidded on sweat-slick skin and he raked the nipple on that side with his thumbnail instead. Tiger Shen groaned, and his chest heaved. "Sky!"

That was really more like it. Sky grinned. "I can't believe there was no one at that school of yours who took a good look at you and didn't try to do anything about the way they had to adjust their clothing. In fact," he flicked his thumb again, "I can't believe they didn't all have to change their underwear all the time. Even people who normally go for delicate beauties would have second thoughts about you."

Tiger Shen was about as far from delicate as you could get, but it was impossible for Sky to imagine anyone laying eyes on those shoulders without wanting to bite them. Sky would do it himself right now if it didn't mean interrupting the steady rhythm of his hips. "I thought," Tiger Shen said, as if they were just carrying on a conversation despite the way he was starting to buck under Sky like a boat on a choppy river, "I thought perhaps I wasn't your type after all."

"You're everyone's type," Sky said. "People stare after you in every village we pass through."

"No, they don't." Tiger Shen thrust up -- with considerably less than his full strength, because he was so damnably considerate.

"Yes, they do, flower." Sky smiled down at Tiger Shen, who was neither delicate nor a beauty, but a strong young man with a kind face and a pure spirit that shone through everything he said and did, like a lit candle in a paper lantern. People mostly stared at the shoulders, though. "I told you, you're everyone's type. And you're mine."

He clenched down to emphasize the point, and Tiger Shen thrust up harder, breathing gone ragged and urgent at last. "Yes," he gasped. "Yes."

"Yes," Sky agreed, slamming his hips down harder in response, because tomorrow would be soon enough for tomorrow's problems, and right now he couldn't get enough of that look on Tiger Shen's face. The wall was crumbling at last, the disaster was imminent, and it was going to be the most epically splendid disaster Sky could manage to give him.

Tiger Shen's grip on Sky's leg slid up to his hip, fingers slotting in between the bruises from before. "I think something strange is about to happen," he said in a surprisingly clear voice.

"Not that strange." Sky ground himself down, because it was definitely going to happen if he had anything to say about it. Tiger Shen shook under him, eyes shut for a moment and then wide open. The walls and ceiling fell away around them into a white hazy glow as Tiger Shen's grip tightened and he thrust up as fast and hard as if he'd still been on top after all, shouting something that Sky couldn't make out before he blazed with light, bright and hard and it was all Sky could do to squeeze his eyes closed and hold on.

Somewhere just out of sight, somewhere that might have been out of sight even if he'd had his eyes open, a wave of light and heat and darkness and cold passed over him and through him, leaving a taste like ice crystals and burned sugar on his tongue.

He lay on top of Tiger Shen as the light faded, feeling little sparks wink and die out all around them. Feeling it happen _inside_ him, and that was just too weird for words. Sky gathered his thought processes as best he could. "Is that going to happen every time?" he asked.

"I don't know," Tiger Shen said, dazed. "I've never done this before." He tangled a hand in Sky's hair and began to rub at his scalp, and Sky really, really hoped it was the clean hand. Cleaner hand. He couldn't remember which was which anymore. "And when it did... I wasn't sure that you could see it."

"I didn't see it, exactly," Sky said, even more grateful that his eyes had been closed for most of whatever-it-was. "I think one of the things that happened was that you expelled a great deal of spirit energy." Tiger Shen made a noise of agreement. "Some of it inside me."

Tiger Shen's hand stilled in his hair. "Oh." He sounded more alert now.

"It's an interesting sensation," Sky said. "I take back what I said. That was definitely something strange, my Spirit Monk."

Tiger Shen drew a deeper breath, his stomach and chest lifting under Sky's weight. "Did it hurt you? Did I--"

"Of course not." Sky didn't even have to think about that before he answered. He was a little sore, but that was for purely ordinary human reasons, and he bore at least as much responsibility for that as Tiger Shen.

"I didn't know that would happen. I don't know if it will happen again." Sky could hear layers of lacquer building up in Tiger Shen's voice. "Perhaps it would be better if we didn't--"

"No." Sky kissed Tiger Shen's chest, lifted his head, and glared. "We're definitely doing that again." Then he forgot to glare, because Tiger Shen really did look concerned. "Unless there's an actual Spirit Monk reason for not spilling your spirit energy in unsuitable places."

"Among all the other things about being a Spirit Monk that no one ever told me," Tiger Shen said, "which includes basically everything, no one ever talked about sex, either."

"Then you'll just have to figure it out by experimenting," Sky said. "I volunteer to help you. In fact, I insist on it." He shifted, trying to find a position that didn't put any strain on his hips. "Although I would appreciate a little rest before we attempt this exact thing again. I may have been a little too vigorous."

Tiger Shen brushed his fingertips over Sky's hip, right where the bruises were coming up. Whichever hand was the dirtier one, he was being petted by both of them. Sky sighed.

"If you like," Tiger Shen said, "I can use some of that massage oil for its actual purpose, and work out the knots in your thighs and hips."

"If you still have that much energy, I'm not sure I was vigorous enough."

"Was that a no?"

Sky shifted again and couldn't hold back a wince. The bruises were nothing, but his joints were protesting. Among other things. While a massage wouldn't help with his most intimate soreness, it would probably do a lot for his ability to straighten his legs again. "Definitely not a no." He kissed Tiger Shen's chest, which was a very low-effort gesture of affection. "You're welcome to put your hands on me." Maybe after washing them first.

The hand in his hair moved. Sky needed to wash _everything_ first.

"That's good to know. I like having my hands on you. It feels like touching sunlight."

"I can never tell when you're trying to be poetic and romantic, and when you're saying something that makes perfect literal sense to a Spirit Monk."

"I'm never trying to be poetic," Tiger Shen said. "I don't know how. It's just-- Wait, do you hear that?"

Sky moved his head enough that he wasn't distracted by Tiger Shen's steady heartbeat and the rumble of his voice. The rapid thud, thud of footsteps in the distance grew louder. Someone was yelling, too. "Boss! Boss!"

"Oh, no." Sky made a futile grab for the bedcovers as Jian burst into the room.

"Boss! Are you okay? We saw a strange light, and there were noises like--" Jian stared at the two of them. Sky tried to pretend that being sprawled naked on top of another naked man did not in any way detract from his dignity. At least, given the angle, Jian couldn't see anything between Sky's spread legs.

Annoyingly, being sprawled naked underneath another naked man did not in any way detract from Tiger Shen's dignity. "We're fine," he said. "The light was just an unexpected Spirit Monk ability. Did you need something?"

"No. No! Sorry!" Jian stopped staring and spun around so he had his back to them. The backs of his ears glowed. "We just thought-- Um-- Okay, leaving now! Sorry, boss!"

His footsteps thudded away even faster than they'd arrived. Sky was grateful that this hideout was as big as it was; at least it had taken a while for him to get to them. Still.

"You know," Tiger Shen sounded thoughtful, "I've never been able to figure out if he means you or me when he says boss."

Sky wondered if it would detract from his dignity if he beat his forehead against Tiger Shen's chest. Probably. "Someone walks in on us when we're naked and obviously post-coital, and that's what you're choosing to focus on?"

"I was trying to distract you," Tiger Shen said. "But now that you've brought it up, I can see some good reasons for relocating to a place with doors, provided we can teach Jian to knock and not just rush in."

Sky raised his head so he could look Tiger Shen in the eyes, because excruciating embarrassment was one thing, but this was important. "I thought we agreed that this is the best Guild hideout that we've found so far."

"It is." The hideout was the perfect balance of secluded and still close to important trade routes; there was plenty of space for storage, for people, and for the excellent flyers that Kang had left them with. The fact that it was a beautiful place in a beautiful location was just a bonus, but Sky admitted to himself that it was an important one.

Tiger Shen sounded calm and serious, as if he was completely prepared to give up all these advantages if some other hypothetical place would provide better privacy. Sky shook his head. Good thing he was here to be the practical one. "We're not giving this place up just because Jian has no sense of what's appropriate. That screen with the dark green lacquer would fit perfectly across the entrance."

"If we remember to set it up when we need it," Tiger Shen said, but not as if he disagreed. "I think Three-Legged Li stored it with the things from the summer temple in Jixing. I'll go get it." He kissed the top of Sky's head. "If you're sure you wouldn't rather move. A screen won't do much to block out sound."

Sky snorted. "No, I wouldn't rather move." Not from this place, which he was getting to be quite fond of, though he would when it became necessary -- moving always became necessary sooner or later, and running an organization like the reformed Guild wasn't an occupation that lent itself to a stable and sedentary life. Moving on early just because there were no doors would be foolish.

And he didn't want to move from his current position, either, but that really was starting to get necessary, in a more immediate way. Warmth and closeness and skin on skin could only distract from sweat and stickiness for so long. Not to mention that hand in his hair.

"And if Jian knocked on a screen, he'd probably knock it over. Or knock a hole in it."

"Make him clap his hands instead," Sky said into Tiger Shen's chest, trying to gather enough willpower to pull away and get up. "Or put a small table by the entrance and make him knock on that. You're quite creative enough to come up with a solution or five to the problem." He loved the way Tiger Shen smelled, the rich spicy human skin smell and just the faintest hint of something cold and other, a breath of snow and electricity and whatever else his mind could come up with to describe the presence of the spirit world. "Or do you really want to move our headquarters just for this? Are you worried that you'll never get to have sex again if there's no door, my shy and retiring flower?"

"No. And I do have a name, you know," Tiger Shen said. "I even have a nickname. You could use that."

That got Sky to lift his head, just so he could try out his best unimpressed look. "I am not calling you Tiger in bed." Tiger Shen's chest rumbled with laughter underneath him. "And we should get out of bed and wash up. Is there water in here?"

"I have no idea." Tiger Shen kissed Sky and rolled them over to the side, and Sky grimaced, because that made him acutely aware of every slick and sticky place on his body. "I was just coming in here to leave a few things when someone decided to tackle me to the bed and have his way with me. I wasn't prepared."

"Nobody was prepared," Sky said. He grinned at Tiger Shen. "Do you think we can call Jian and ask him to bring us some wash water?"

"Don't be cruel," Tiger Shen said reprovingly, but he grinned back. "Come on, you're the experienced one, you should get up and lead the way." He poked Sky's chest. Sky poked him back, enjoying the way he could do that and get in a little appreciative touching at the same time, ending with a push that had absolutely no effect at all.

That was a strategic mistake, he realized when Tiger Shen pushed at him in retaliation. Sky slid backwards, and then the bolster he'd pulled askew earlier tipped under him and he skidded on it and grabbed for Tiger Shen's arm, missed, and fell out of bed.

"I knew it," Sky muttered. He looked up over the edge of the bed to see that Tiger Shen was silently, fondly laughing at him. "We should get some carpets in here." The plank flooring was hard, and also only roughly finished. "Unless you want me to get splinters in my ass."

Tiger Shen rolled up on one elbow. "I didn't realize you were planning to fall out of bed often enough to need a proper set-up for your landings."

"I told you the bed wasn't big enough." Sky sat up, and although the wooden floor was uncomfortable under him, he was actually glad there wasn't a carpet, because he would have left an embarrassing stain. "And people who are the size of young mountains should at least have the decency to behave themselves and not go around pushing at their innocent bed partners."

"Do you know, of all the things I've ever wanted to call you," Tiger Shen said, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed, "innocent never even occured to me." He reached down and clasped Sky's wrist, waiting until Sky had clasped his back before hauling him to his feet. "Let's get cleaned up and go find that screen. And talk to Jian."

"I will never be able to look Jian in the face again," Sky said. "Though I suppose he wasn't looking at my face."

"He can see your face every day," Tiger Shen pointed out. "But unless you want him to get to see the rest of you every day, too, we should probably get that screen." He brushed at the drying semen on his stomach. "But clean up first." He looked consideringly at Sky. "Did you know that from the far point of the path outside this cave, you can dive straight into the sea?"

Then they'd be covered in salt water, and need a lot more cleaning-up, but Sky knew there was also a freshwater stream that came down out of the forest that they could wash in afterwards, and he'd much rather go around covered in salt water for a while than with smears of semen and oil that would tell everyone exactly what had happened, not that they couldn't guess already, and get an eyewitness report from Jian as well. "Lead the way," he said. "We should probably come up with a better solution before winter, though."

"We'll have moved before winter," Tiger Shen said, heading out. He looked back over his shoulder. "Somewhere with doors."


End file.
